How society pays when woman’s work is unpaid?

Worldwide, women spend an average of 4.5 hours a day on unpaid work, including grocery shopping, child care and laundry. That is more than double the amount of time men spend, according to O.E.C.D. data. Men spend significantly more time on paid work and also on leisure activities, which include playing sports, watching TV and hanging out with friends.

Claire Cain Miller 

In countries around the world, the ways in which men and women spend their time are unbalanced. Men spend more time working for money. Women do the bulk of the unpaid work — cooking, cleaning and child care.

This unpaid work is essential for households and societies to function. But it is also valued less than paid work, and when it is women’s responsibility, it prevents them from doing other things.

“This is one of those root inequalities that exist all over in society and we just don’t talk about it very much,” Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Gates Foundation, said in an interview. She said she was inspired by her own observations when traveling to other countries as well as by time-use datafrom the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “If we don’t bring it forward, we basically won’t unlock the potential of women.”

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Para continuar a leitura, acesse http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/upshot/how-society-pays-when-womens-work-is-unpaid.html?_r=0

Claire Cain Miller – Writer for The Upshot, the Times site about politics, economics and everyday life. She covers gender, work and family as well as technology and the way it changes our lives.  23.02.2016.

IN New York Times.

Sem parâmetros

A eleição da “pós-verdade” (“circunstâncias em que os fatos objetivos têm menos influência sobre a opinião pública do que a emoção e as crenças pessoais”) como a palavra do ano pelo Dicionário Oxford não podia ser mais adequada para definir um ano em que os movimentos de direita se definem anti-establishment. No Brasil, diante de uma esquerda enfraquecida, mentiras que impulsionam a ação:  reinventam a ameaça comunista e a necessidade de sua contenção. Essa narrativa, em última instância, legitima a ascensão do autoritarismo e do regime de exceção.

Rosana Pinheiro Machado

Nada mais perturbador do que o sentimento de perda dos parâmetros, de verdade, de justiça, de bom senso, de autoridade de tempo e direção. Não há mais regra, ou segurança, de que o voto e os direitos sejam garantidos. É um desmonte dos direitos e da segurança que traziam. É como se todas as peças do sistema estivessem frouxas. Hanna Arendt lembra-nos que as crises republicanas (o abalo da tradição, da verdade e da autoridade) deixam uma lacuna desconcertante entre o passado e o futuro. É o limbo histórico, descompasso do tempo.

Crises econômicas tornam-se também políticas e morais. O colapso é multidimensional e ocorre em múltiplos níveis e contextos.

Perdemos alguns modelos de projeção. Os países que possuíam agenda mais consolidada de direitos humanos dão um passo atrás.

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Para continuar a leitura, acesse http://www.cartacapital.com.br/

Rosana Pinheiro-Machado – Cientista Social e antropóloga, professora visitante da USP e colunista da Carta Capital – 28.12.2016.

IN Carta Capital.

Why Referendums Aren’t as Democratic as They Seem

Politicians or other powerful actors will often reframe the referendum into simplistic, straightforward narratives. The result is that votes become less about the actual policy question than about contests between abstract values, or between which narrative voters find more appealing.

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Though presented as putting power in the hands of the people, referendums are often intended to put a stamp of popular legitimacy on something leaders have already decided to do.

Amanda Taub and Max Fisher

The voters of the world have had quite a year: They rejected Colombia’s peace deal; split Britain from the European Union; endorsed a Thai Constitution that curtails democracy; and, in Hungary, backed the government’s plan to restrict refugees, but without the necessary turnout for a valid result.

Each of these moves was determined by a national referendum. Though voters upended their governments’ plans, eroded their own rights and ignited political crises, they all accomplished one thing: They demonstrated why many political scientists consider referendums messy and dangerous.

When asked whether referendums were a good idea, Michael Marsh, a political scientist at Trinity College Dublin, said, “The simple answer is almost never.”

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Para continuar a leitura, acesse http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/world/americas/colombia-brexit-referendum-farc-cameron-santos.html?ref=todayspaper&referer=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FYrAG86IqRL

Amanda Taub and Max Fisher – 04.10.2016.

In NY Times.